StableHost Review – All-Rounded Hosting Service Review

StableHost is a privately-owned company that has been growing since the first inception in 2009. However, unlike most “mega-brands” that own thousands of employees, this company is just a team of 10 staffs who promise to treat customers as their own mothers.

According to customer reviews and our hosting experiences, there are many highlights that set StableHost apart from the average. Meanwhile, this web host is not built around outstanding performance and great support. In below, we will outline both the advantages and shortcomings of this company.

StableHost Advantages

#1: upgradable hosting plans

This company provides a rich set of hosting services similar to most hosting providers nowadays, including:

Shared Web Hosting – this is perfect for small to medium businesses, and two hosting plans called “Starter” and “Pro” are involved. As shown, the listed prices ($4.95/mo and $8.95/mo) are meant for the monthly billing cycle and renewals as well. For 36-month contract term, the plans are only starting at $2.95/mo.

Enterprise Web Hosting – this is ideal for very large and busy websites with over 215,000 visitors per month. The “Platinum” plan charges for $29.95/mo but can be ordered at $27.5/mo provided that purchasers choose 3 years as the initial sign-up period.

Reseller Web Hosting – there are three levels of plans that are “Basic”, “Reseller” and “Plus”. The amount of disk space varies depending on the plan that subscribers choose. Usually, the cheapest plan (costs $9.95/mo) can serve 10 clients, while the costliest plan (costs $29.95/mo) can hold over 50 clients.

Virtual Private Servers – this is created for those who have outgrown shared hosting or for large game servers/websites. The plans are named after the allocated memory (or RAM), such as VZ 1GB, VZ 2GB and VZ 4GB. Generally the price ranges from $9.95/mo to $29.95/mo.

#2: rock-solid hosting features

Regardless of the type of hosting, StableHost customers can receive the following features:

LiteSpeed web server. Each plan comes standard with LiteSpeed PHP caching that is approximately 9 times faster than the typical server.

Free R1Soft daily backups. The daily backups are performed under a powerful server backup manager – R1Soft, and the restore points are stored weekly for future use.

Free site transfer & site builder. For customers moving from another web host, the staffs of StableHost will help them transfer the website files and databases free of charge. Besides that, free site builder is also provided for website owners to make a free website or online shop.

Risk-free money back guarantee. To persuade webmasters to try the shared and reseller services, the web host agrees to offer a full refund within the first 45 days, excluding domain registration fees and third-party service fees. A 7-day refund guarantee is provided on dedicated servers.

However, the plans differ from each other in terms of the server resources. Here, let’s take the example of shared hosting. Though the “Starter” and “Pro” plans both allow for unlimited disk space, monthly bandwidth, SSD drives as well as free website builder, the allocation of domains is different. With the former one, customers can get one single domain; while there is no any limit with the latter one.

#3: multiple datacenter locations

StableHost clients are empowered to choose a server closer to website visitors between multiple geographic locations. Generally this company covers both U.S. and EU, with three datacenters located in Chicago, Phoenix (the most popular one) as well as Amsterdam. That’s good news for users looking for a bit of flexibility when it comes down to server location.

StableHost Shortcomings

#1: chat support is not allowed

Technical support is available 24×7, but the support method and priority will vary greatly for different types of accounts. Usually, “Enterprise” or much advanced accounts will earn priority placement in the support queue, and their submitted questions will be answered much faster. Of course, all accounts can use email address or ticket system for support, with access to the community forums and knowledgebase.

However, the most efficient phone support is only available from 9:00 to 17:00 (MST). Do not expect technical support via this hotline as it only deals with Sales related issues. Plus, there is no chat support, which is deemed as an effective method for non-English speakers.

#2: 99.99 percent uptime guarantee only applies to premium users

As the name “Stable Host” implies, this company is confident to provide a stable and secure hosting environment for all clients. However, only “Enterprise” users are assured to get 99.99% uptime (averagely 4.32 minutes of downtime each month), and “Shared” users are expected to receive 99.9% uptime (averagely 43.2 minutes of downtime each month).

During the past days, our UptimeRobot.com page reported an uptime of around 99.9%, and the most recent downtime occurred for a period of 11 minutes. This is just average.

#3: MySQL connection is insufficient for large websites

Often times, the MySQL connections will be connected with the maximum number of your visitors. As such, the MySQL connection limit of StableHost is fairly limited for a medium to large website. For instance, clients can only get 15 MySQL connections at the “Pro” plan that costs almost twice as much as their “Starter” plan. For those looking for SSH access, this company charges additional 2.5 bucks per month.

#4: there are no pro-rated refunds

That means, customers who cancel their accounts after the initial 45 days won’t get pro-rated refunds. Plus, the hosting account and domain registration need to be cancelled respectively, and users will have to click two different links to perform the cancellation task. Really troublesome!

#5: average server response time is just so-so

Instead of giving the detailed network information on the official page, StableHost invites all visitors to test out the loading speed of all their locations. According to our Pingdom.com report, the server response time of this company averages 3.86s. This is not as fast as is advertised.

Summary – Not Try It

From this StableHost review, we can see StableHost has more shortcomings than advantages, and webmasters who are in search for a high-performed and helpful web host would better not try it. Instead, there are some recommendable alternatives as follows.

I've been an experienced web developer, SEOer and technical writer since 2003. I worked in many international high-tech companies including Microsoft and Autodesk before 2012. Now I own a startup company in San Francisco, CA, focusing on developing websites and blogs to deliver exceptional results to global readers by leveraging the power of Internet.
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FTC Disclosure

We get commission from web hosting companies for referral and advertisement. However, this does not affect our unbiased web hosting reviews and insights. We never allow payments to influence our judgement. We always work hard and try our best to help people find the best cost effective web hosting deals at an affordable rate.